Green Party’s Foreign Policy Will Harm Sino-German Relations

A new parliament was elected in Germany on September 26th. At the beginning of December, the SPD (Social Democrats), FDP (Free Democrats), and the Greens signed the coalition agreement. What foreign policy can we expect from this new German government towards China? To answer this question, we need to take a closer look at the parties involved.

The deciding factor is the participation of the Greens in this government. In recent years they have developed into the greatest warmongers, imperialists, and transatlanticists in the German party landscape. Whether in the Bundestag (German parliament) or at the EU level — the Greens are always at the forefront when it comes to spreading propaganda against China. An example is the Bundestag debate from September 9, 2020 on the basis of Drucksache (parliamentary record) 19/17687 and 19/20346. With the old CIA stories about Uyghurs, about a Chinese dictatorship inside the country, and the increasing Chinese threat to the world, the Greens once again delivered pure aggression to the detriment of German-Chinese relations.

FDP: Freedom for Islamists — coercion for Germans

Yes, even the smallest coalition partner, the FDP, is always eager when it comes to propaganda against China. At the same Bundestag debate on September 9, 2020, the FDP was represented with its own motion to “loudly condemn human rights violations in China” (Drucksache 19/22108) and the speech by the FDP politician, who is also chair of the Human Rights Committee, was just as aggressive and embarrassing like that of the Green politician. A similar picture emerged on May 17, 2021: the Bundestag human rights committee dealt with “human rights violations against the Uyghurs”.[1] Here, too, the Greens and the FDP were the loudest agitators against China, as can be read in Protocol No. 19/82.

However, there is an important difference between the FDP and the Greens and a reason why the Greens are the greater danger: the FDP is a party of unprincipled careerists and has shown in the past that it is willing to give up all positions if this makes government participation possible. It was last seen again in the debate on forced vaccination. Before the election, the FDP leader claimed his party stood for individual freedom and against compulsory vaccinations. After the election, he turned 180 degrees, and now the same FDP leader is arguing for compulsory vaccinations. He is also now finance minister.

However, the FDP is being moderated a bit, as it at least has to pretend to make politics for its voter groups. And as its voter group, this party also includes the German economy, especially mid-sized German companies. These companies want to continue to benefit from China’s economic growth.

The party of transnational finance capital

The Greens, on the other hand, are pure neoliberal madness and the favored party of transnational finance capital, which is currently the dominant political power in Germany and most western countries. On the one hand, the Greens do not have a group of voters that they have to be very considerate of — they basically do not care about the German economy and the people in Germany are also not important to these rootless cosmopolitans. On the other hand, they are just as willing to give up their “convictions” if it serves their careers.

For this reason, the Greens are still trying by all means to stop the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, e.g., in the Bundestag debate on September 18, 2020 — see Drucksache 19/22499, even if this endangers Germany’s energy security and thanks to the “Energiewende” (energy revolution), which was actively propagated by the Greens and poorly implemented, ensures that people here will soon be sitting in the dark and cold. Because the Greens have the political mission to harm Russia by all means and to enforce American fracking gas (which, by the way, is very environmentally harmful and expensive).

For this reason, the Greens are not interested in the damage to German-Chinese relations that they are causing with their aggressive stance towards the People’s Republic of China. Or more precisely: they are very interested in this damage and want to maximize it. So that Germany remains firmly integrated in the NATO bloc, economically completely dependent on the US and the EU and with no chance of becoming a truly independent country.

Why are the Greens the best instrument to fulfill this mission? There are older and bigger parties in Germany, that might have their traditional supporters but are equally focused on fulfilling the wishes of transnational finance capital. The reason is that the Greens align closely with all big transformations, that are being enforced in western countries: Green Capitalism in the economy, Radical Individualism in the society, Fake Democracy in politics. This is being pushed by the Greens in a sneaky way. They don’t say let’s go to war to conquer new territories, they say: “Let’s go to war because the enemy is violating the human rights of transgender people in his/her/nonbinary country. And by the way, let’s use electrical tanks to not harm the climate.” This is the new mask of the same old western imperialism.

Green goblins in the German Foreign Ministry?

A participation of the Greens in government is bad enough, but it has got worse: the Green politician Annalena Baerbock is now Foreign Minister of the new German government. Even her predecessor was an embarrassment for Germany and was considered the worst foreign minister in the history of this country. But with Annalena Baerbock at the helm of the Foreign Office, things are now going one step lower.

This woman falsified her résumé, received her (expensive) degree from the London School of Economics, presumably without the required academic qualifications, and describes herself as an international lawyer (Völkerrechtler) without a full law degree.[2] She “forgot” to indicate additional income as a parliamentarian and received 40,000 euros for a grant from the Green Heinrich Böll Foundation, without completing her doctorate.[3] Interestingly, at that time she was already the chairwoman of the Greens in the federal state of Brandenburg and whether the scholarship was only awarded according to academic criteria can be doubted. There are serious allegations of plagiarism against her book [4] and it is questionable who wrote it in the first place. Maybe the hard-working green goblins in the batteries, of which she spoke when she couldn’t tell the difference between goblin (German: “Kobold”) and cobalt.

In serious countries, people with such qualifications would not be allowed to run a small town, but in today’s Germany, it is enough for the position of foreign minister. Bad enough. Even worse, however, is why this woman was specifically trained for a high position in foreign policy: her job is to damage relations with China and Russia even more than her predecessor did. She is supposed to aggressively enforce NATO policy and develop Germany into the spearhead of Western aggression. No matter what the costs are for the people and the economy in this country.

Value-based foreign aggression

It is therefore not surprising that she made clear statements before taking office. In an interview with the green daily “taz”, Baerbock said that she would have “dialogue and a robust stance” against China. She spoke of import bans from Xinjiang and even a possible boycott of the Winter Olympics. She referred to all of this as “value-based foreign policy”, which means that international law will be ignored even more and that aggressive foreign policy will be justified with neoliberal political slogans. As a transatlantic NATO-newspaper, the “taz” took on these statements with great joy and turned the suicidal attacks by the small US vassal Lithuania against China into an exemplary policy for Germany.[5]

This once again confirms the Green party danger for Germany. These neoliberal “world citizens” in politics and the press will send this country into suicidal attacks against China and Russia, regardless of loss. With the economic sanctions against Russia, which mainly harmed the German economy, we have already seen such attacks in the economic field. The previous German government was at least sufficiently sane to understand what almost 100 billion euros in exports to China mean for the economy and jobs in Germany. There is therefore hope that the SPD Chancellor will counteract the Green party escalation in foreign policy and foreign trade. As the former mayor of the biggest German port city of Hamburg, he should understand how important China is for Germany.

It is doubtful whether the new green foreign minister and the new green economics minister will take this into account. What should one expect from people who have been deliberately damaging German energy security and economy for years? Why should they suddenly take it into account when carrying out their foreign policy mission? After the sabotage is done, these cosmopolitans disappear to London or the USA and become well-paid speakers or political advisers there.

Green party history repeats itself

With that, we also have the transition to a historical parallel. Let’s remember the last government participation of the Greens. At that time, too, they provided the Foreign Minister with Joseph “Joschka” Fischer. Germany waged its first war of aggression (against Yugoslavia) with a green foreign minister, and Fischer was the top warmonger. Without ever having completed a degree or even finished school, Fischer then became a professor at Princeton University in the United States.

His policy as foreign minister was later well rewarded: from 2006 he gave well-paid lectures at banks such as Barclays and Goldman Sachs, he became an advisor to the World Jewish Congress and a founding member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, which is financed by billionaire Geroge Soros. In 2008, Fischer became an advisor to the company of former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.[6] This fighter for “human rights” said at the time that the sanctions against Iraq were worth half a million dead Iraqi children.

This is to illustrate what unscrupulous transatlantic warmonger agents the Greens are. These people are firmly embedded in the system and aggressively represent the policies of their transnational sponsors. It has nothing to do with the interests of the people and the economy of Germany. The danger of war is now growing, in Europe and in East Asia. The coalition agreement of the new German government shows that attempts to destabilize independent countries will be expanded and that rearmament will increase. Armed drones and nuclear carriers are to be bought and there is talk of “Germany’s responsibility for Europe and the world”. These are, of course, paraphrases for an aggressive foreign policy and for foreign deployments of the Bundeswehr (German army).

If the former defense minister made a fool of himself by saying “Germany is being defended at the Hindu Kush” (and we are currently seeing the result of this defense), then Green party’s foreign policy will “defend” Germany even in the Baltic States, Ukraine, and East Asia. But they will speak of defending “values” and “human rights”. Then as of now, it will actually be about transatlantic obligations and monopoly capitalist interests of a small elite. In the German political landscape, the Greens are the best instrument for implementing such an assertive, cold and hot war policy.

The article reflects the author’s opinions, and not necessarily the views of China Focus.